Uncertain destiny for PGT Beauregard monument

The General PGT Beauregard monument, which has been a point of contention in DeRidder since mid-June, may be headed to Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans, not Beauregard Parish.

Rachel Steffan

According to the City Park Improvement Board, the city of New Orleans is in an ongoing conversation with Greenwood Cemetery about the possibility of their acquisition of the seven-ton statue. Greenwood Cemetery, in use since 1852, houses tombs for hundreds of unknown Confederate soldiers.

The 102-year-old statue was one of four monuments dismantled in May, from the entrance to City Park on Esplanade Avenue. It was originally erected to honor Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, a General of the Confederate army, who led the attack on Fort Sumter, marking the beginning of the Civil War.

The New Orleans City Council declared, in 2015, that this statue, among three other Confederate monuments, was a public nuisance.

In a June statement to the Beauregard Daily News, New Orleans' city communications director, Tyronne Walker, said the city has been in the process of determining the appropriate place for the monuments since their removal. "The city wants them to be placed in their proper historical context from a dark period of American history.”

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said, in his May speech about the monuments' removal, "To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past. It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future."

One of Landrieu's stipulations for the relocation of the monuments, was that they not be displayed anywhere outdoors in Orleans Parish. Greenwood Cemetery is both outdoors and located in Orleans Parish.

The monument’s final location is still up in the air, but New Orleans city officials are nearing a conclusion, said board member, Paul Masinter.

The Beauregard Parish Police Jury (BPPJ) voted nine-to-one, in June, approving a resolution to look into acquiring the monument for display in DeRidder.

Rusty Williamson, president of BPPJ said Bryan McReynolds, BPPJ administrator, had been contacted by a New Orleans city official, informing him that the monument had been removed from private property. He said it was sitting in a “junkyard,” and perhaps the parish would be interested in acquiring the monument, after pending litigation is settled.

Despite the controversy, Williamson said the jury intended to submit a proposal for the statue, and hoped that a compromise would be possible within the community. "I am proud of the jury for having a backbone and the courage to vote to bring him here. They knew we were going to get criticism," he said.

This decision was met with immediate protest by the Beauregard Community Coalition group. The group marched on June 13, shortly after the police jury's vote. They have since been continuously voicing their concern and rallied again last Friday outside DeRidder City Hall.

Community Coalition president, and local pastor, Michael Harris, has been at the forefront of the public protest against bringing the monument to Beauregard Parish.

Harris feels the PGT Beauregard monument has a place in history and should be recognized for his part in Louisiana history. "A museum would be the appropriate place, not in front of the courthouse. We believe that if you take the dark part of our past and keep it in front of us, before we know it, we will be walking toward it again," he said. "Our concern is that [PGT Beauregard] was a slave owner, which qualifies him to be an oppressor."

Bob Becker, City Park CEO, said, “We’re just waiting on the city to tell us what comes next.”